The Book On Oprah - Oh Yes!

Her Upcoming Book Was The Talk Of The Booksellers Confab But Other Authors Had Them Buzzing Too.

June 6, 1993|By Nancy Pate SENTINEL BOOK CRITIC

MIAMI BEACH — Booksellers love Oprah Winfrey. After all, when Oprah talks about a new book on her syndicated television show, readers flock to the stores to buy it. What could be better - except a book by Oprah herself.

That book will become a reality in September when Knopf publishes Oprah ($24), written by Winfrey and Joan Barthel. Appropriately enough, the book - its contents still unknown - was the talk of the four-day American Booksellers Association convention and exhibit, which drew 24,000 booksellers, publishers, editors, reviewers and agents to the Miami Beach Convention Center over the Memorial Day weekend.

But Winfrey won't be the only talk-show host likely to be eyeing the fall best-seller lists. Also on tap are Rush Limbaugh's follow-up, See, I Told You So; an autobiography by Howard Stern; and Larry King's still-to-be-written The New Road to the White House, about the role TV talk shows played in the last presidential campaign.

''Oprah and the rest will get buyers into the store,'' said San Francisco bookseller Rosa Herrington. ''Happily, there's going to be lots to bring readers into the bookstore as well.''

Indeed. Booksellers also were buzzing about a score of other highly anticipated fiction and nonfiction works by big names in the book biz, from Stephen King and Anne Rice to Joe McGinnis and Maya Angelou.

The master of the macabre will return in October with Nightmares & Dreamscapes, his first collection of stories since 1986's Skeleton Crew, while Rice's Lasher, the sequel to her best-selling The Witching Hour, is slated to hit bookstores on Halloween.

Inaugural-day poet Angelou will offer an inspirational nonfiction work, Lessons in Living, in September. McGinnis, whose subjects have ranged from Richard Nixon to Alaska to true crime, has turned his attention to Teddy Kennedy with October's The Last Brother.

Other forthcoming nonfiction works being touted by publishers and talked about by booksellers are separate volumes from former hostages Terry Anderson and Terry Waite. Both Betty Friedan and Tracy Kidder will have new books dealing with old age. Friedan hopes to change the way society thinks about aging with The Fountain of Age, while in Old Friends, Kidder writes about the friendship of two roommates at a New Eng land nursing home.

''So much has been written about the elderly and nursing homes and all the problems,'' Kidder said. ''I touch on these issues, but I wasn't trying to write an important book. I wanted to write a good one.''

James Dickey, Margaret Atwood and Herman Wouk are among the literary luminaries with new novels on the horizon, and William Styron's A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth is the first fiction work from the Pulitzer-Prize winning author in more than a decade. James Crumley is also back with his first detective novel in 10 years, The Mexican Tree Duck, which is a sequel to his The Last Good Kiss.

''I think there are a lot of books I can sell on the fall list,'' said Omaha, Neb., bookseller Charles Levitt, who is hosting the national mystery fan convention, Bouchercon, in October. ''Naturally, I'm particularly enthusiastic about the Crumley.''

Susan Davis ticked off the names of two novelists she expects will draw readers into her Charleston, S.C., bookstore: Robert James Waller and Carl Hiaasen.

Waller, of course, is the Iowa author of the country's No. 1 fiction best seller, The Bridges of Madison County. His second novel, another love story called Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, will arrive in bookstores in November, ''just in time for Christmas gift giving,'' as Davis put it.

Hiaasen, the Miami reporter who has gained a growing following with the publication of each of his satirical crime novels, returns in September with Strip Tease, which involves politicians, strippers, sugar cane growers and blackmailers. The novel is set in South Florida, as is fellow reporter and novelist Edna Buchanan's Miami, It's Murder, set for winter publication. Rumor had it that Hyperion, Buchanan's publisher, shelved plans to promote the book to arriving convention-goers at the airport at the request of Miami tourism boosters.

Whether it was fear of Miami's crime problems, worry about fallout from the William Lozano verdict (announced the day booksellers arrived), horrible weather (a tropical depression dumped rain by the buckets) or just the fact that Miami was an inconvenient location for most booksellers, many people stayed away from this year's convention. Overall attendance was down by more than 6,000 from previous conventions in Anaheim, Calif., and New York, and publishers complained there were fewer booksellers than ever on the exhibit floor.

By contrast, most of the 5,427 booksellers registered seemed pleased with the publishers' offerings for fall. Still, while retail book sales rose to $8.8 billion in 1992 - an increase of $900 million from 1991 - independent booksellers are worried that the growing number of chain ''superstores'' will drive them out of business.